obamanda fucking palmer

still home in boston, feeling more and more human every day.
i’ve done lots of very practical things, like laundry, and getting my shoes fixed, and cleaning my sink, and eating chocolates, and getting a hepatitis vaccine (one nasty shot in each arm) so i can tour in places like mexico and eastern europe and not get infected. and listening to nouvelle vague and gary numan on repeat. and trying not to make plans. my feelings still aren’t very audible.

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i love this. a lovely lady named elizabeth cavallon just sent it.

apparently there’s a site called obamicon.me where you can obama yourself, your cat, your first vibrator, whatever you fancy:

awesome.

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ASK AFP (i’m really enjoying this, btw):

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distsergirl wrote:
1. how many times, if any, has an obsessive compulsive fan scared the shit out of you?
2. is there anyone that you get all fangirly about, and if so, who?

afp answers:
1. never. it’s really hard to scare the shit out of me. and my fans are really nice. sometimes they CREEP ME OUT, but that’s different.
2. i have yet to meet morrissey and robert smith. i had the chance to meet the mozzer, and i said no. too risky. because what if he sucked? robert….i have no words. i’d freak.
and i also have harboured a life-long emo crush on conor oberst.

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the songmeaning debate continues…this is interesting.

gmarie wrote:
No. We can be wrong about the meaning of songs. And books and poems and pictures and all sorts of art. If I listen to Tori Amos and then state that her song (pick one) is all about celebrating rape and that men have the right to rape and women should just shut up and enjoy it, I’m wrong. I don’t care what personal frame I’m bringing or what my personal experience or philosophy is or any of that bullshit. I’m just wrong and will always be wrong and no amount of feel-good individual ego stroking by others will ever make me be anything but wrong. Now most of the time, most of us aren’t that extremely whacked about the meaning of art. But stating that we can’t be wrong is ridiculous. And selfish.
&
mika wrote:
To be a pedant — because I, unlike “nell,” am actually paid to be one — I find her egregious complaint that “technically someone cannot be wrong when talking about a songs meaning” (sic) and your agreeable response to it (“you are 100% correct”!!!!!) an affront not only to pedants everywhere but also to simple truth and justice. OF COURSE YOU CAN BE WRONG! AND YOU CAN BE A COMPLETE BLOCKHEAD! people do it every day, in every corner of life, all over the world. indeed, among the population of song interpreters who publish their views on the Web, spectacular blockheads are wildly over-represented.
While there is no question that when we examine a work or art (or a math equation or a piece of dog poop), we take our own lives, what we have learnt, what’s happening to us then and what has happened, and use that to help us understand the piece.
It does not, though, in any way follow logically from our doing so, thank goodness, that anything our personal experience leads us to believe about the art, math, dog poop, is true, valid, or even worth rendering in words. “Pale Fire,” by Nabokov, conveys perhaps the world’s most delicious instance of a reader who uses his life, what he has learned, and what has happened to him to deeply, utterly, profoundly, and hilariously misconstrue a work of literature. Pace “nell,” the only reasonable thing one can mean when one says “this song (or film or book or poem) means x” is “PUTTING ASIDE MY OWN PERSONAL HISTORY AND IDIOSYNCRASIES I believe there is enough evidence within the work (or, perhaps, outside the work, in the record of the creator’s personal life) to support the view that this song (or film or book or poem) means what I argue it does, and reasonable people who weigh and judge the evidence fairly will tend to agree with me.” Anyone who takes the view that the work of art means whatever she happens on the basis of her personal experiences to feel it means today may receive no more significant punishment in this life than flunking college English courses, but that at least is something. And she will be shamed and ridiculed by true, honest-to-goodness pedants everywhere.

afp writes:
this is an impossible debate, because it’s just semantics. in a way.
yes, of course people can be technically “wrong” if they think “coin-operated boy” was written about a dildo, or think “leeds united” is about supporting a british soccer team, or think “guitar hero” was written about my fondness for nikki sixx (but dude, i totally analyzed the lyrics!). they would only be “wrong” in the sense that *I* wasn’t thinking about dildos or nikki sixx. there are lots of people who interpret “have to drive” in ways that i never would have thought, but when i hear their interpretations it’s as if their thoughts and emotions have actually extended the song beyond itself. so where is the line drawn? i still stand by my original assertion that once the song is out there, it’s all you guys. there can be my original intention, for sure, and you can see that as the “correct” meaning of the song, but it’s just not that easy. not to mention that i often deliberately write things to be widely interpretable, and sometimes even purposefully tricky.  and if we were not at personal liberty to attach our own meanings to songs, paintings, films, rainbows of gasoline in puddles of rain, however random and bizarre those meanings might be, art would lose one of it’s most powerful and profound qualities: to be personal to each and every beholder.

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Lady Ginger wrote:
I absolutely love the costumes you wear on stage — particularly the corsets and the long skirts. I’m a burlesque dancer and would love to know where you get them from/who makes them.

afp answers:
all of the costumes on this last tour were done by skin.graft in LA…..they have a great website (skingraftdesigns.com)….

(AFP & the danger ensemble and lyndon chester behind the theater of living arts in philly, photo by kyle)

….and if you wait a couple months you can actually order a skingraft skirt much like the one i wore on the true colors tour at postwartrade.com, they made them exclusively for us.
i think they’re backordered right now, but drop a line and we’ll get you hooked up. they run about $100. i’ll let you know when we get more back in stock, we sold out of the first 50 almost instantly.

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Alison writes:
on whokilledamandapalmer.com there is a photo on page 4 of you at a bar and it looks like you’ve got a cigarette in your hand. Say it isn’t so! Are you a full time smoker? I hope not. It would be a shame to ruin that beautiful voice of yours.

afp answers:
i smoked for ten years, but never heavily…only about 5-10 a day, and often way less.
i quit when i went in to record the first dolls record and i’m really glad i did.
however, when i drink heavily, which isn’t TOO often, i crave cigarettes like a total addict. so if you see me drunk, and you smoke, run away before i attack you.
especially if you’ve got nat shermans or cloves.

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sundry:

there’s an awesome interview with me, talking about “art”, up at myartsapce……
http://www.myartspace.com/blog/2009/01/art-space-talk-amanda-palmer.html

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bed time.

x
afp